22 Oct –"Skyfall" actor Ben Whishaw is the frontrunner to play Freddie Mercury in the biographical film which will tell the story of the band Queen's vocalist. Quoted from the Daily Mail report, Whishaw was chosen after Sacha Baron Cohen from movies like "Borat" and "Hugo" pulled out of the film in July. Cohen reportedly pulled out of the film because of creative differences. Band member Brian May said "we felt that his presence in the movie would be very distracting". "What led us to that conclusion was the last three movies that Cohen had made, which were "The Dictator", "Les Miserables" and "Hugo", in which he makes outstanding performances; but they're very much Sacha Baron Cohen performances. And we thought there has to be no distraction in the Freddie movie. You have to really suspend that disbelief of the man who plays Freddie and you have to really believe that he is Freddie. And we didn't that could really happen with Sacha."
Band member Roger Taylor remarked that the actor the band would prefer had the initials "BW", and when asked if that meant Whishaw, he replied, "Well, we hope so." Whishaw, 33, has previously starred in the movie "Skyfall" and also played Keith Richards in the 2005 film, "Stoned" which also told the story of the co-founder of the Rolling Stones, Brian Jones.